Libya uprising - Tuesday 1 March as it happened: part 2

• West discusses no-fly zone over Libya
• Saif Gaddafi denies protesters have been attacked
• EU to hold summit on situation
• Libya suspended from UN Human Rights Council
• Fighting continues around the country

Demonstrators, flying the pre-Gaddafi Libyan flag, in the main square of Benghazi yesterday. Photograph: Tiago Petinga/EPA

5.47pm: Fighting continues across Libya as the west tries to decide how to respond. Here are today's key developments:

• The idea of creating a no-fly zone over Libya is still being discussed by western countries. The US general James Mattis described it as "challenging" (see 3.55pm). Russia's foreign minister called the plans "superfluous". Russia has a veto in the UN security council. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has suggested Libya could either become a peaceful democracy or fall into "protracted civil war" (see 3.23pm). The US began moving warships in the region in a show of force.

• Saif Gaddafi has denied there have been attacks on protesters in Libya, and said things are "not as bad as you see from outside" (see 3.37pm). And Venezuela's Hugo Chavez came to the Gaddafis' defence, accusing the west of "rubbing their hands over Libya's oil" (see 2.02pm).

• The EU is to hold a special summit on Libya and north Africa on 11 March (see 4.46pm). Oil prices have soared to a two and a half year high.

• There has been fighting in Zintan, 90 miles south of Tripoli (see 4.43pm), where opposition forces managed to repel the pro-Gaddafi military, as they did in Misrata, 125 miles east of the capital. Opposition forces in Nalut, 140 miles south-west of Tripoli, feared an assault from pro-Gaddafi forces was imminent. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that the situation at the Libya-Tunisia border is at crisis point (see 3.01pm).

• In Iran, security forces have fired tear gas and clashed with opposition supporters in Tehran (see 2.54pm). In Tunisia, regional development minister Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, a key figure from the old opposition, resigned from the interim government (see 2.28pm). In Yemen, opposition parties joined hundreds of thousands of people on anti-government protests for the first time (see 1.20pm). Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, launched an attack on Barack Obama, saying: "Every day we hear a statement from Obama saying: 'Egypt you can't do this, Tunisia don't do that.' What do you have to do with Egypt? Or with Oman? ... Are you president of the United States, or president of the world?" In Oman the government deployed troops north of the capital Muscat and near the border with the United Arab Emirates following three days of anti-government protests

• The British government has sent HMS York to evacuate more Britons from Libya. The ship, a type 42 destroyer, had been in the Mediterranean for some days and is now headed to Benghazi. It will pick up any remaining British nationals wanting to leave Libya - the first UK-sponsored rescue mission since the frigate Cumberland left the port for Malta on Sunday.

• Austria has joined other countries in impounding Gaddafi's assets, while Germany has frozen a bank account registered to one of the Libyan leader's sons. The Austrian central bank froze around €1.2bn (£1.02bn) of Libyan assets held in Austrian financial institutions this morning. The German bank account reportedly contains €2m.

5.58pm: US senator John McCain, the Republican candidate for president in 2008, has said the unrest rocking countries across the Middle East provides an unprecedented opportunity to support the people there in shaping a new order that is more consistent with US interests and values.

6.01pm: The BBC's Frank Gardner was just on the BBC News channel saying there were credible reports that Muammar Gaddafi has sacked his right-hand man, information chief Abdullah Senussi, who Gardner called the "Chemical Ali" of Libya. My colleague Ian Black, the Guardian's Middle East correspondent, is sending over a profile of Senussi.

6.32pm:This is Ben Quinn taking over the live blog for this evening. A White House press conference which ended in the last 20 minutes was told that US ships are being moved to waters closer to Libya in order to prepare for contingencies of a chiefly humanitarian nature.

Spokesman Jay Carney also added, however : "we aren't taking any options off the table." He also said Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's inner circle ought to "think twice" about continuing to support him.

6.40pm: Here is more on the reported sacking by Muammar Gaddafi of his right-hand man, information chief Abdullah Senussi. Ian Black, the Guardian's Middle East editor, writes:

Libya's Quryna newspaper has reported that Gaddafi has sacked perhaps his most trusted aide, his brother-in-law and enforcer in-chief Abdullah Senoussi. If true, it could indicate serious disagreements at the very heart of the regime.

He has had a reputation for brutality since the mid-1970s and his name appeared recently as number two on an opposition list of wanted "war criminals", topped by Gaddafi.

Senussi is being blamed for the killings in the eastern city of Benghazi as well as recruiting foreign mercenaries fighting in the service of the regime.

Libyans hold him responsible for the notorious 1996 massacre of about 1,200 inmates at the Abu Salim prison.

Senussi has kept a low profile in recent years, partly because he has been unable to travel abroad since being convicted in absentia in France in 1999 for his role in the 1989 bombing of a UTA passenger plane over Niger which killed 170 people.

At the time, he headed Libya's external security organisation, in which capacity he was said to have recruited Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Like Megrahi, Senussi is a member of the powerful, and apparently still loyal, Megarha tribe.

Further details of what the UNHCR has described as a crisis are provided by this Reuters report from the Tunisian border post of Ras Jdir, where the UNHCR footage was taken:

Soldiers fired into the air in an effort to subdue a wave of Egyptian labourers desperate to escape Libya on Tuesday, as the refugee crisis created by the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi escalated.

Aid workers threw bottles of water and loaves of bread over the wall to a sea of men surging forward towards the safety of Tunisian soil, in a futile attempt to calm them.Young Tunisians with branches torn from the trees kept them from clambering over the wall between border posts.

Tunisian officials were processing entrants as fast as they could, as medics plucked fainting men from the heaving mass sweeping over the chest-high steel gate.

Panicking migrants passed their bulging suitcases, rugs, and blankets overhead at the gate where soldiers with sticks tried to hold them back. A Tunisian officer with a loud hailer shouted reassurances that they would be let in.

Order looked close to collapse at one brief point in the overflowing border compound on the Tunisian side, where throngs of men jostled and long lines of exhausted migrants in torn jackets and headcloths queued for water, food, and toilets.

Troops fired warning shots in the air and white-faced officers unholstered their automatic pistols.

Many tens of thousands more are expected to flee west from the violence that has consumed Liby as Gaddafi's regime teeters on the verge of collapse.

"We can't see beyond that building on the Libyan side but we think there are many more waiting to come through, " said Ayman Gharaibeh, team leader for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) at Ras Jdir.

"The numbers are daunting," he said. The last couple of days had seen an upsurge and refugees were now crossing at a rate of up to 15,000 a day, he said.

There was no one to coordinate relief and establish order on the Libyan side and the UNHCR judged it was not safe to go over there. Medecins sans Frontieres and the Red Cross-Red Crescent were trying to liaise with the Libyans to slow the flow.

"It looks like it's going to get worse ... They are going to break down the wall in the end," said Gharaibeh grimly.

8.19pm: Libya's deputy UN ambassador has been speaking about efforts by Muammar Gaddafi to have him and the ambassador removed from their posts after they spoke out against the Libyan leader. The Associated Press news agency has filed this from New York:

Libya's deputy UN ambassador said Tuesday that Muammar Gaddafi is trying to replace him and Ambassador Mohamed Shalgham because they have both called for an end to his regime.

Ibrahim Dabbashi told The Associated Press on Tuesday that "certainly it will not be accepted by the United Nations."

But UN diplomats and observers say it could be complicated because, from a legal and protocol standpoint, the Gaddafi government is still accredited to the United Nations and therefore has the right to choose who represents it.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky confirmed "that the United Nations has received a notification from the Libyan authorities." He refused to elaborate, saying only that "the correspondence is being studied."

A UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the letter involved Shalgham and Dabbashi. At the U.N., virtually all deputies have ambassadorial rank.

Dabbashi, surrounded by members of Libya's UN Mission, called on Gaddafi to step down on Feb. 21. Shalgham initially refused to oppose Gaddafi, calling him "my friend," but he did an about-face last Friday and denounced the Libyan leader.

The Gaddafi regime also informed the State Department that it was firing its US ambassador, Ail Aural, who announced last week he was siding with the opposition. State Department lawyers are looking into whether the US will accept the legitimacy of the request.

8.27pm: Two US amphibious assault ships - the USS Kearsarge, which can carry 2,000 Marines, and the USS Ponce - are due to pass through Egypt's Suez Canal on Wednesday morning, an Egyptian official has told Reuters.

The US said on Monday that it was moving ships and planes closer to Libya. But the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, warned earlier today that military action must be carefully weighed because it will have broad consequences on the region and the US military, including the effort in Afghanistan.

Gates says he ordered two ships into the Mediterranean, including USS Kearsarge, the Associated Press News agency reported.

8.49pm: The UN General Assembly has unanimously suspended Libya's membership in the UN Human Rights Council because of violence by Libyan forces against protesters.

The Council is an inter-governmental body within the UN system and is made up of 47 States responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe, according to its website.

It was created by the UN General Assembly in 2006 with the aim of addressing human rights violations and making recommendations on them.

9.18pm: Libya's suspension from the UN Human Rights Council is the first time that a Member State has been suspended from the Council.

While the vote does not permanently remove Libya from the council, it prevents the country from participation until the General Assembly determines whether to restore the country to full status. The resolution was sponsored by Arab and African states.

In an apparent reflection of Muammar Gaddafi's close relationship with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the Venezuelan Ambassador Jorge Valero expressed reservations about the vote.

"A decision such as this one could only take place after a genuine investigation," he said.

The move has been welcomed by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, who said: "Suspension from the Council puts yet more pressure on the Libyan regime to listen to the clear message of the international community; crimes will not go unpunished and will not be forgotten; there will be a day of reckoning and the reach of international justice is long."

They report that the British government toned down its belligerent military stance over Libya after the Obama administration publicly distanced itself from the prime minister's suggestion that Nato should establish a no-fly zone over the country and that rebel forces should be armed.

Today's change in rhetoric from Britain came as the US made clear it would adopt a more cautious approach and European diplomats expressed surprise at Cameron's rhetoric.

There are grim rumours – though they are no more than that – that at other hospitals in Libya the opposition wounded have been taken by police.

Opponents of the regime who live abroad alleged five days ago that forces loyal to the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi stormed hospitals in Tripoli and summarily executed injured anti-regime protestors who were being treated.

The claim is impossible to verify, but what is true is that they have fed a sense of fear and paranoia.

11.12pm: The London School of Economics's governing body has been in talks on how to defuse a growing row over a £300,000 donation from a charitable foundation run by Muammar Gaddafi's son.

But while a massive supply of arms are available to rebels in the town of Ajdabiya, he explains that the road to victory for the rebels is far from clear:

With the rush of euphoria from Gaddafi's defeat in the east now subsiding, the rebels are facing a series of difficult choices.

"We are still hoping that Tripoli falls by itself," said Captain Faris Zwei at a smaller base further north towards Ajdabiya. "But if it doesn't we will go there."

For now, Zwei and the haggard band of men he commands are preparing for a shorter journey, a 120-mile push south then west towards the oil town of Ras Lanuf, where Gaddafi loyalists roam.

This appears to be the main frontline, a drab town on the coastal road that was in rebel hands until Sunday.

"We will move there within two days if we have to," said Zwei.

"Gaddafi's forces are there but they are mainly restricted to their bases. There are pockets of resistance from Ras Lanuf onwards."

12.24am: That's all from this blog for now, but please join us again in a few hours for continuing coverage of events in Libya.For now, here is a summary of developments over the course of Tuesday:

• The idea of creating a no-fly zone over Libya is still being discussed by western countries. The US general James Mattis described it as "challenging" (see 3.55pm). Russia's foreign minister called the plans "superfluous". Russia has a veto in the UN security council. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has suggested Libya could either become a peaceful democracy or fall into "protracted civil war" (see 3.23pm). The US began moving warships in the region in a show of force.

• Violence in Libya has triggered an exodus of more than 140,000 refugees to Tunisia and Egypt, according to the UN, as aid workers warned the situation at the Tunisian border has reached crisis point (see 7.15pm).Officials say the situation has been made even more volatile by humanitarian aid workers being blocked from reaching western Libya and patients reportedly being executed in hospitals.At the Libya-Tunisian border where authorities say up to 75,000 people have gathered in just nine days "the situation is reaching crisis point," the UN refugee agency warned.

• Saif Gaddafi has denied there have been attacks on protesters in Libya, and said things are "not as bad as you see from outside" (see 3.37pm). And Venezuela's Hugo Chavez came to the Gaddafis' defence, accusing the west of "rubbing their hands over Libya's oil" (see 2.02pm).

• The EU is to hold a special summit on Libya and north Africa on 11 March (see 4.46pm). Oil prices have soared to a two and a half year high. Elsewhere on the international front, the UN General Assembly has unanimously suspended Libya's membership in the UN Human Rights Council because of violence by Libyan forces against protesters (see 8.49pm).

• There has been fighting in Zintan, 90 miles south of Tripoli (see 4.43pm), where opposition forces managed to repel the pro-Gaddafi military, as they did in Misrata, 125 miles east of the capital. Opposition forces in Nalut, 140 miles south-west of Tripoli, feared an assault from pro-Gaddafi forces was imminent.